Taking Away

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Warm up/Mobility:

Strength:

10 min Vo2 Max KB Snatch:

Notes: For ten minutes, EMOTM complete 6-10 reps of a KB snatch on each arm, alternating arms once within each minute. Like Tabata, try to hold the same amount of reps on each arm during each minute. Weights: Beginner: 16/12 kg , Intermediate: 20/16kg, Advanced: 24/20 kg If the Kettlebell snatch is a new movement, you may want to use a dumbbell to prevent bruising.

Summer Six Packs:

Now that the Open is over, and the Nutrition Challenge is over, I’d like to solicit some of your takeaways.

For The Open, I’ve compiled a list of things I’m going to keep with me not only until the Open next year, but probably for the entirety of my training life.

1. Go slow. – I’m so used to busting out the gate fast and hard at 3-2-1 Go. It wasn’t until Track Nights and The Open WODs this year where I realized that unless the WOD is 30 seconds to 1 minute long, you actually can and SHOULD start slower than you think so you can hulk out at the right time. Going Beast Mode is something that I love doing, and it’s absolutely essential in training, and something everyone should do, but be smart with it too.

2. Have a plan, but don’t be married to that plan. – Everything looks good on paper until you get punched in the face. I had a strategy for every single workout in The Open and it went to shit every single time. Accept that things will go wrong sooner than you think. You’ve got to improvise on the spot and work with what you have.

3. The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in combat . . . – For the most part, who I was during the Open was who I was. My overall performance, I knew, would be a result of the months and years I put in before the Open, not the first few weeks leading up to it.

4. Have a good time – If you saw the atmosphere and camaraderie during Friday Night Lights, you know your friends want you to win as much as they want to win. Being there for each other is what keeps a lot of us coming back for more.

5. Go there – These WODs gave many people the opportunity to see what they were truly made of. It was usually the last 60 to 90 seconds where people had to, as McCoy and I are fond of saying, go there: That place between red line and passing out, where desperation and bravery and foolishness are swirling together in a shitstorm of tunnel vision and uncharted WOD territory. Going there is also a skill, so the more you learn to manage that place, the more you become comfortable with the uncomfortable.